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women to have true actions of right and equity, and that therefore they cannot peruse a better book than Dalton's Country Justice. Another thinks they cannot be without The Complete Jockey. A third, observing the curiosity and desire of prying into secrets, which he tells me is natural to the fair sex, is of opinion this female inclination, if well directed, might turn very much to their advantage, and therefore recommends to me Mr. Mede upon the Revelations. A fourth lays it down as an unquestioned truth, that a lady cannot be thoroughly accomplished who has not read The Secret Treaties and Negociations of Marshal d'Estrades. Mr. Jacob Tonson, junior, is of opinion, that Bayle's Dictionary might be of very great use to the ladies, in order to make them general scholars. Another, whose name I have forgotten, thinks it highly proper that every woman with child should read Mr. Wall's History of Infant Baptism; as another is very importunate with me to recommend to all my female readers The Finishing Stroke; being a Vindication of the Patriarchal Scheme, &c.

In the second class I shall mention books which are recommended by husbands, if I may believe the writers of them. Whether or no they are real husbands, or personated ones, I cannot tell; but the books they recommend are as follow:-A Paraphrase on the History of Susannah. Rules to keep Lent. The Christian's Overthrow prevented. A Dissuasive from the Playhouse. The Virtues of Camphire, with Directions to make Camphire Tea. The Pleasure of a Country Life. The Government of the Tongue. A letter dated Cheapside, desires me that I would advise all young wives to make themselves mistresses of Wingate's Arithmetic, and concludes with a Postcript, that he hopes I will not forget The Countess of Kent's Receipts.

I may reckon the ladies themselves as a third class among these my correspondents and privy-counsellors. In a letter from one of them, I am advised to place Pharamond* at the head of my catalogue, and if I think proper, to give the second place to Cassandrat. Coquetilla begs me not to think of nailing women upon their knees with manuals of devotion, nor of scorching their faces with books of housewifery. Florella desires to know if there are any books written against prudes, and entreats me, if there are, to give them a place in my library. Plays of all sorts have their several advocates: All for Love is mentioned in above fifteen letters; Sophonisba, or Hannibal's Overthrow, in a dozen; The Innocent Adultery is likewise highly approved; Mithridates, King of Pontus, has many friends; Alexander the Great and Aurengzebe have the same number of voices; but Theodosius, or the Force of Love, carries it from all the rest.

I should, in the last place, mention such books as have been proposed by men of learning, and those who appear competent judges of this matter, and must here take occasion to thank A.B., whoever it is that conceals himself under these two letters, for his advice upon this subject. But as I find the work I have undertaken to be very difficult, I shall defer the executing of it till I am farther acquainted with the thoughts of my judicious contemporaries, and have time to examine the several books they offer to me: being resolved, in an affair of this moment, to proceed with the greatest caution.

In the meanwhile, as I have taken the ladies under my particular care, I shall make it my business to Two celebrated Freuch romances, written by M. La Calprentede.

find out in the best authors, ancient and modern, such passages as may be for their use, and endea vour to accommodate them as well as I can to their taste; not questioning but the valuable part of the sex will easily pardon me, if from time to time I laugh at those little vanities and follies which appear in the behaviour of some of them, and which are more proper for ridicule than a serious censure. Most books being calculated for male readers, and generally written with an eye to men of learning, makes a work of this nature the more necessary; besides, I am the more encouraged, because I flatter myself that I see the sex daily improving by these my speculations. My fair readers are already deeper scholars than the beaux. I could name some of them who talk much better than several gentlemen that make a figure at Will's; and as I frequently receive letters from the fine ladies and pretty fellows, I cannot but observe that the former are superior to the other, not only in the sense but in the spelling. This cannot but have a good effect upon the female world, and keep them from being charmed by those empty coxcombs that have hitherto been admired among the women, though laughed at among the men. I am credibly informed that Tom Tattle passes for an impertinent fellow, that Will Trippet begins to be smoked, and that Frank Smoothly himself is within a month of a coxcomb, in case I think fit to continue this paper. For my part, as it is my business in some measure to detect such as would lead astray weak minds by their false pretences to wit and judgment, humour and gallantry, I shall not fail to lend the best light I am able to the fair sex for the continuation of these their discoveries.-L.

No. 93.] SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 1711

Spatio brevi

Spem longam reseces: dum loquimur, fugerit invida
Ætas: carpe diem, quam mmimum credula postero.
HOR. 1 Od. xi. 6

Thy lengthen'd hopes with prudence bound
Proportion'd to the flying hour:

While thus we talk in careless ease,

The envious moments wing their flight,
Instant the fleeting pleasure seize,

Nor trust to-morrow's doubtful light.-FRANCIS WE all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them. That noble philosopher has described our inconsistency with ourselves in this particular, by all those various turns of expression and thought, which are peculiar to his writings.

I often consider mankind as wholly inconsistent with itself in a point that bears some affinity to the former. Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honours, then to retire. Thus, although the whole life is allowed by every one to be short, the several divisions of it appear long and tedious. We are lengthening our span in general, but would fain contract the parts of which it is composed. The usurer would be very well satisfied to have all the time annihilated that lies between the present moment and next quarter-day. The politi cian would be contented to lose three years in his

teen parts of it to lie dead, and perhaps employs even the twentieth to his ruin or disadvantage? But because the mind cannot be always in its fervours, nor strained up to a pitch of virtue, it is necessary to find out proper employments for it in its relaxations.

life, could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in after such a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to strike out of his existence all the moments that are to pass away before the happy meeting. Thus, as fast as our time runs, we should be very glad in most parts of our lives that it ran much faster than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands, nay we wish away whole years; and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it. If we divide the life of most men into twenty parts, we shall find, that at least nineteen of them are mere gaps and chasms, which are neither filled with plea-sense passing away a dozen hours together in shufsure nor business. I do not, however, include in this calculation the life of those men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of those only who are not always engaged in scenes of action; and I hope I shall not do au unacceptable piece of service to these persons, if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. The methods I shall propose to them are as follow.

The next method therefore that I would propose to fill up our time, should be useful and innocent diversions. I must confess I think it is below reasonable creatures to be altogether conversant in such diversions as are merely innocent, and have nothing else to recommend them but that there is no hurt in them. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to say for itself I shall not determine; but I think it is very wonderful to see persons of the best fling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other conversation but what is made up of a few game phrases, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots ranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of this species complaining that life is short?

The stage might be made a perpetual source of the most noble and useful entertainments, were it under proper regulations.

But the mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in the conversation of a well-chosen friend. There is indeed no blessing of life that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend. It eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolutions, soothes and allays the passions, and finds employments for most of the vacant hours of life.

The first is the exercise of virtue, in the most general acceptation of the word. The particular scheme which comprehends the social virtues, may give employment to the most industrious temper, and find a man in business more than the most active station of life. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almost every day of our lives. A man has frequent opportunities of mitigating the fierceness of a party; of doing justice to the character of a deserving man; of softening the envious, quieting the angry, and Next to such an intimacy with a particular perrectifying the prejudiced; which are all of them em-son, one would endeavour after a more general conployments suited to a reasonable nature, and bring great satisfaction to the person who can busy himself in them with discretion.

versation with such as are able to entertain and improve those with whom they converse, which are qualifications that seldom go asunder.

There are many other useful employments of life, which one would endeavour to multiply, that one might on all occasions have recourse to something, rather than suffer the mind to lie idle, or run adrift with any passion that chances to rise in it.

There is another kind of virtue that may find em ployment for those retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and destitute of company and conversation; I mean that intercourse and communication which every reasonable creature ought to maintain with the great Author of his being. The A man that has a taste of music, painting, or man who lives under an habitual sense of the divine architecture, is like one that has another sense, presence keeps up a perpetual cheerfulness of temper, when compared with such as have no relish of those and enjoys every moment the satisfaction of think-arts. The florist, the planter, the gardener, the ing himself in company with his dearest and best of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him: it is impossible for him to be alone. His thoughts and passions are the most busied at such hours when those of other men are the most unactive. He no sooner steps out of the world but his heart burns with devotion, swells with hope, and triumphs in the consciousness of that presence which every where surrounds him; or, on the contrary, pours out its fears, its sorrows, its apprehensions, to the great supporter of its existence.

I have here only considered the necessity of a man's being virtuous, that he may have something to do; but if we consider farther, that the exercise of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it lasts, but that its influence extends to those parts of our existence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole eternity is to take its colour from those hours which we here employ in virtue or in vice, the argument redoubles upon us for putting in practice this method of passing away our time.

husbandman, when they are only as accomplishments to the man of fortune, are great reliefs to a country life, and many ways useful to those who are possessed of them.

But of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors. But this I shall only touch upon, because it in some measure interferes with the third method, which I shall propose in another paper, for the employment of our dead unactive hours, and which I shall only mention in general to be the pursuit of knowledge.-L.

No. 94.] MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1711.

Hoc est
Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui.-MART. Epig. xxiil. 10.
The present joys of life we doubly taste,
By looking back with pleasure to ine past,

THE last method which I proposed in my Saturday's paper, for filling up those empty spaces of life When a man has but a little stock to improve, which are so tedious and burdensome to idle people, and has opportunities of turning it all to good ac is the employing ourselves in the pursuit of knowcount, what shall we think of him if he suffers nine-ledge. I remember Mr. Boyle, speaking of a cer

tain mineral, tells us, that a man may consume his whole life in the study of it, without arriving at the knowledge of all its qualities. The truth of it is, there is not a single science, or any branch of it, that might not furnish a man with business for life, though it were much longer than it is.

I shall not here engage on those beaten subjects of the usefulness of knowledge; nor of the pleasure and perfection it gives the mind; nor on the methods of attaining it; nor recommend any particular branch of it; all which have been the topics of many other writers; but shall indulge myself in a speculation that is more uncommon, and may therefore perhaps be more entertaining.

I have before shewn how the unemployed parts of life appear long and tedious, and shall here endeavour to shew how those parts of life which are exercised in study, reading, and the pursuits of knowledge, are long, but not tedious, and by that means discover a method of lengthening our lives, and at the same time of turning all the parts of them to our advantage.

Alcoran, was transacted in so small a space of tine, that Mahomet at his return found his bed still warm, and took up an earthen pitcher, which was thrown down at the very instant that the Angel Gabriel carried him away, before the water was all spilt.* There is a very pretty story in the Turkish tales, which relates to this passage of that famous impostor, and bears some affinity to the subject we are now upon. A sultan of Egypt, who was an infidel, used to laugh at this circumstance in Mahomet's life, as what was altogether impossible and absurd; but conversing one day with a great doctor in the law, who had the gift of working miracles, the doctor told him he would quickly convince him of the truth of this passage in the history of Mahomet, if he would consent to do what he should desire of him. Upon this the sultan was directed to place himself by a huge tub of water, which he did accordingly; and as he stood by the tub amidst a circle of his great men, the holy man bid him plunge his head into the water, and draw it up again. The king accordingly thrust his head into the water, and at the Mr. Locke observes, "That we get the idea of same time found himself at the foot of a mountain time or duration, by reflecting on that train of ideas on the sea-shore. The king immediately began to which succeed one another in our minds: that for rage against his doctor for this piece of treachery this reason, when we sleep soundly without dream and witchcraft; but at length, knowing it was in ing, we have no perception of time, or the length vain to be angry, he set himself to think on proper of it whilst we sleep; and that the moment wherein methods for getting a livelihood in this strange we leave off to think, till the moment we begin to country. Accordingly he applied himself to some think again, seems to have no distance." To which people whom he saw at work in a neighbouring the author adds, "and so I doubt not but it would wood: these people conducted him to a town that be to a waking man if it were possible for him to stood at a little distance from the wood, where, after keep only one idea in his mind, without variation, some adventures, he married a woman of great and the succession of others: and we see, that one beauty and fortune. He lived with this woman so who fixes his thoughts very intently on one thing, long, that he had by her seven sons and seven so as to take but little notice of the succession of daughters. He was afterward reduced to great want, ideas that pass in his mind whilst he is taken up with and forced to think of plying in the streets as a that earnest contemplation, lets slip out of his ac-porter for his livelihood. One day as he was walking count a good part of that duration, and thinks that time shorter than it is."

alone by the sea-side, being seized with many melancholy reflections upon his former and his present state of life, which had raised a fit of devotion in him, he threw off his clothes with a design to wash himself, according to the custom of the Mahometans, before he said his prayers.

We might carry this thought farther; and consider a man as, on one side, shortening his time by thinking on nothing, or but a few things; so on the other, as lengthening it, by employing his thoughts on many subjects, or by entertaining a quick and constant succession of ideas. Accordingly, Monsieur Mallebranche, in his Inquiry after Truth (which was published several years before Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding), tells us, "that it is possible some creatures may think half an hour as long as we do a thousand years; or look upon that space of duration which we call a minute,itude; but was wonderfully surprised when he heard as an hour, a week, a month, or a whole age."

After his first plunge into the sea, he no sooner raised his head above the water but he found himself standing by the side of the tub, with the great men of his court about him, and the holy man at his side. He immediately upbraided his teacher for having sent him on such a course of adventures, and betrayed him into so long a state of misery and serv

that the state he talked of was only a dream and delusion; that he had not stirred from the place where he then stood; and that he had only dipped his head into the water, and immediately taken it out again. The Mahometan doctor took this occasion of in

This notion of Monsieur Mallebranche is capable of some little explanation from what I have quoted out of Mr. Locke; for if our notion of time is produced by our reflecting on the succession of ideas in our mind, and this succession may be infinitely ac-structing the sultan, that nothing was impossible celerated or retarded, it will follow, that different beings may have different notions of the same parts of duration, according as their ideas, which we suppose are equally distinct in each of them, follow one another in a greater or less degree of rapidity.

There is a famous passage in the Alcoran, which looks as if Mahomet had been possessed of the notion we are now speaking of. It is there said, that the Angel Gabriel took Mahomet out of his bed one morning to give him a sight of all things in the seven heavens, in paradise, and in hell, which the prophet took a distinct view of: and after having held ninety thousand conferences with God, was brought back again to his bed. All this, says the

with God; and that He, with whom a thousand years are but as one day, can, if he pleases, make a single day, nay, a single moment, appear to any of his creatures as a thousand years.

I shall leave my reader to compare these eastern fables with the notions of those two great philosophers whom I have quoted in this paper; and shall only, by way of application, desire him to consider how we may extend life beyond its natural dimensions, by applying ourselves diligently to the pursuits of knowledge.

• The Spectator's memory hath here deceived him; no such in some of the histories of Mahomet's life. passage is to be found in the Alcoran, though it possibly may

The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions. The time of the one is long, because he does not know what to do with it; so is that of the other, because he distinguishes every moment of it with useful or amusing thoughts; or, in other words, because the one is always wishing it away, and the other always enjoying it.

How different is the view of past life, in the man who is grown old in knowledge and wisdom, from that of him who is grown old in ignorance and folly! The latter is like the owner of a barren country, that fills his eye with the prospect of naked hills and plains, which produce nothing either profitable or ornamental; the other beholds a beautiful and spacious landscape divided into delightful gardens, green meadows, fruitful fields, and can scarce cast his eye on a single spot of his possessions, that is not covered with some beautiful plant or flower.-L.

No. 95.] TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1711. Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.-SENECA TRAG. Light sorrows loose the tongue, but great enchain.-P HAVING read the two following letters with much pleasure, I cannot but think the good sense of them will be as agreeable to the town as any thing I could say, either on the topics they treat of, or any other; they both allude to former papers of mine, and I do not question but the first, which is upon mourning, will be thought the production of a man who is well acquainted with the generous yearnings of distress in a manly temper, which is above the relief of tears. A speculation of my own on that subject I shall defer till another occasion.

The second letter is from a lady of a mind as great as her understanding. There is, perhaps, something in the beginning of it which I ought in modesty to conceal; but I have so much esteem for this correspondent, that I will not alter a tittle of what she writes, though I am thus scrupulous at the price of being ridiculous.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

us, nothing is so fallacious as this outward sign of sorrow; and the natural history of our bodies will teach us that this flux of the eyes, this faculty of weeping, is peculiar only to some constitutions. We observe in the tender bodies of children, when crossed in their little wills and expectations, how dissolvable they are into tears. If this were what grief is in men, nature would not be able to support them in the excess of it for one moment. Add to this observation, how quick is their transition from this passion to that of their joy! I will not say we see often, in the next tender things to children, tears shed without much grieving. Thus it is common to shed tears without much sorrow, and as common to suffer much sorrow without shedding tears. Grief and weeping are indeed frequent companions; but, I believe, never in their highest excesses. As laughter does not proceed from profound joy, so neither does weeping from profound sorrow. The sorrow which appears so easily at the eyes, cannot have pierced deeply into the heart. The heart distended with grief, stops all the passages for tears or lamentations.

"Now, Sir, what I would incline you to in all this is, that you would inform the shallow critics and observers upon sorrow, that true affliction labours to be invisible, that it is a stranger to ceremony, and that it bears in its own nature a dignity much above the little circumstances which are affected under the notion of decency. You must know, Sir, I have lately lost a dear friend, for whom I have not yet shed a tear, and for that reason your animadversions on that subject would be the more acceptable to, "Sir, your most humble servant,

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"As I hope there are but few who have so little gratitude as not to acknowledge the usefulness of your pen, and to esteem it a public benefit; so I am sensible, be that as it will, you must nevertheless find the secret and incomparable pleasure of doing good, and be a great sharer in the entertainment you give. I acknowledge our sex to be much obliged, and I hope improved, by your labours, and even your intentions more particularly for our service. If it be true, as it is sometimes said, that our sex have an influence on the other, your paper may be a yet more general good. Your directing us to reading is certainly the best means to our instruction; but I think with you, caution in that particular very useful, since the improvement of our understandings may or may not be of service to us, according as it is managed. It has been thought we are not generally so ignorant as ill-taught, or that our sex does not so often want wit, judgment, or knowledge, as the right application of them. You are so well-bred, as to say your fair readers are already deeper scholars than the beaux, and that you could name some of them that talk much better than several gentlemen that make a figure at Will's. This may possibly be, and no great compliment, in my

"I was very well pleased with your discourse upon general mourning, and should be obliged to you if you would enter into the matter more deeply, and give us your thoughts upon the common sense the ordinary people have of the demonstrations of grief, who prescribe rules and fashions to the most solemn affliction; such as the loss of the nearest relations and dearest friends. You cannot go to visit a sick friend, but some impertinent waiter about him observes the muscles of your face as strictly as if they were prognostics of his death or recovery. If he happens to be taken from you, you are immediately surrounded with numbers of these spectators, who expect a melancholy shrug of your shoulders, a pathetical shake of your head, and an expressive distortion of your face, to measure your affection and value for the deceased. But there is nothing, on these occasions, so much in their favour as immoderate weeping. As opinion, even supposing your comparison to reach all their passions are superficial, they imagine the seat of love and friendship to be placed visibly in the eyes. They judge what stock of kindness you had for the living, by the quantity of tears you pour out for the dead: so that if one body wants that quantity of salt water another abounds with, he is in "I cannot but agree with the judicious trader in great danger of being thought insensible or ill- Cheapside (though am not at all prejudiced in his natured. They are strangers to friendship whose favour) in recommending the study of arithmetic; grief happens not to be moist enough to wet such a and must dissent even from the authority which you parcel of handkerchiefs. But experience has told | mention, when it advises the making our sex scholars,

Tom's and the Grecian. Surely you are too wise to think that the real commendation of a woman. Were it not rather to be wished we improved in our own sphere, and approved ourselves better daughters, better wives, mothers, and friends?

Indeed a little more philosophy, in order to the sub-fand I assure you, Mr. Spectator, I remember the duing our passions to our reason might be some- beautiful action of the sweet youth in his fever, as times serviceable, and a treatise of that nature I fresh as if it were yesterday. If he wanted any should approve of even in exchange for Theodosius, thing, it must be given him by Tom. When I let or the Force of Love; but as I well know you want any thing fall, through the grief I was under, he not hints, I will proceed no farther than to recom- would cry, 'Do not beat the poor boy; give him mend the Bishop of Cambray's Education of a some more julep for me, nobody else shall give it Daughter, as it is translated into the only language me.' He would strive to hide his being so bad, I have any knowledge of, though perhaps very much when he saw I could not bear his being in so much to its disadvantage. I have heard it objected against danger, and comforted me, saying, 'Tom, Tom, have that piece, that its instructions are not of general a good heart.' When I was holding a cup at his use, but only fitted for a great lady: but I confess I mouth, he fell into convulsions; and at this very am not of that opinion; for I do not remember that time I hear my dear master's last groan. I was there are any rules laid down for the expenses of a quickly turned out of the room, and left to sob and woman-in which particular only I think a gentle-beat my head against the wall at my leisure. The woman ought to differ from a lady of the best for- grief I was in was inexpressible: and every body tune, or highest quality, and not in their principles thought it would have cost me my life. In a few of justice, gratitude, prudence, or modesty. I ought days my old lady, who was one of the housewives of perhaps to make an apology for this long epistle; the world, thought of turning me out of doors, bebut as I rather believe you a friend to sincerity than cause I put her in mind of her son. Sir Stephen ceremony, shall only assure you I am, proposed putting me to prentice; but my lady being an excellent manager, would not let her husband throw away his money in acts of charity. I had sense enough to be under the utmost indignation, to see her discard, with so little concern, one her son had loved so much; and went out of the house to ramble wherever my feet would carry me.

T.

"Sir, your most humble servant,

"ANNABELLA."

No. 96.1 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 1711.

Amicum

Mancipium domino, et frugi.-HOR, 2 Sat. vii. 2.

The faithful servant, and the true.-CREECH.
#MR. SPECTATOR,

"The third day after I left Sir Stephen's family, I was strolling up and down in the walks of the Temple. A young gentleman of the house, who (as I heard him say afterward) seeing me half"I HAVE frequently read your discourse upon starved and well-dressed, thought me an equipage servants, and as I am one myself, have been much ready to his hand, after very little inquiry more than offended that in that variety of forms wherein you 'Did I want a master?' bid me follow him; I did considered the bad, you found no place to mention so, and in a very little while thought myself the hapthe good. There is, however, one observation of piest creature in the world. My time was taken up yours I approve, which is, 'That there are men of in carrying letters to wenches, or messages to young wit and good sense among all orders of men, and ladies of my master's acquaintance. We rambled that servants report most of the good or ill which is from tavern to tavern, to the playhouse, the Mul spoken of their masters.' That there are men of berry-garden, and places of resort; where my sense who live in servitude, I have the vanity to say master engaged every night in some new amour, in I have felt to my woeful experience. You attribute which and drinking he spent all his time when he very justly the source of our general iniquity to had money. During these extravagancies, I had board-wages, and the manner of living out of a do- the pleasure of lying on the stairs of a tavern half mestic way; but I cannot give you my thoughts on a night, playing at dice with other servants, and the this subject any way so well as by a short account of like idlenesses. When my master was moneyless, I my own life, to this the forty-fifth year of my age was generally employed in transcribing amorous that is to say, from my first being a foot-boy at four-pieces of poetry, old songs, and new lampoons. This teen, to my present station of a nobleman's porter life held till my master married, and he had then in the year of my age abovementioned. the prudence to turn me off, because I was in the secret of his intrigues.

"Know then, that my father was a poor tenant to the family of Sir Stephen Rackrent. Sir Stephen put me to school, or rather made me follow his son Harry to school, from my ninth year; and there, though Sir Stephen paid something for my learning, I was used like a servant, and was forced to get what scraps of learning I could by my own industry, for the schoolmaster took very little notice of me. My young master was a lad of very sprightly parts; and my being constantly about him, and loving him, was no small advantage to me. My master loved me extremely, and has often been whipped for not keeping me at a distance. He used always to say, that when he came to his estate I should have a lease of my father's tenement for nothing. I came up to town with him to Westminster-school; at which time he taught me at night all he learnt, and put me to find out words in the dictionary when he was about his exercise. It was the will of Providence that master Harry was taken very ill of a fever, of which he died within ten days after his first falling sick. Here was the first sorrow I ever knew; SPECTATOR-Nos. 15 & 16,

*

She

"I was utterly at a loss what course to take next; when at last I applied myself to a fellow-sufferer, one of his mistresses, a woman of the town. happening at that time to be pretty full of money, clothed me from head to foot; and knowing me to be a sharp fellow, employed me accordingly. Sometimes I was to go abroad with her, and when she had pitched upon a young fellow she thought for her turn, I was to be dropped as one she could not trust. She would often cheapen goods at the New Exchange;† and when she had a mind to be attacked, she would send me away on an errand. When an humble servant and she were beginning a parley, I came immediately, and told her Sir John was come home: then she would order another coach to pre

ment near Buckingham-house (now the Queen's Palace), someThe mulberry-garden was a place of elegant entertainwhat like the modern Vauxhall.

↑ The New Exchange was situated between Durham-yard of millinery wares till 1737, when it was taken down, and and York-buildings in the Strand. It was the fashionable mart dwelling-houses erected on the spot.

I

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